Willie Watson: Willie Watson review – a former hell-raiser finds his voice

Watson owns one of the most distinctive voices in modern Americana; high and melodic, it can also be piercing, plaintive, and downright otherworldly, an echo from the time “old weird America” was amassing its treasury of song. It’s a legacy explored by Watson, first as co-founder of Old Crow Medicine Show and more recently on Folk Singer Vols 1 and 2 , two albums of covers masterly produced by David Rawlings. What he has lacked is an authorial voice – his own songs – an absence remedied here. Again its backings are low-key, acoustic and crisp; the voice is the thing. Now in his mid-40s, Watson casts a rueful eye on his former hell-raising self on slow numbers such as Real Love , written for his wife (seen dancing with him on the video), and Already Gone, a portrait of a time when “there are no hearts left to break”. He hasn’t abandoned covers; Stan Rogers’s Harris and the Mare and the wacky Mole in the Ground are here, while Slim and the Devil uses verses by Harlem revival poet Sterling A Brown. The lengthy spoken-word Reap ’em in the Valley recounts a teenage spiritual awakening in an apple orchard; genial and touching.